A version of this story appears in The Daily Norwalk.
Students in Norwalk, Connecticut will soon be learning the same material as kids in Norwalk, Ohio. Until now, each state decided independently what to teach their students. On Wednesday, that changed--the State Board of Education unanimously adopted national standards in K-12 language arts and mathematics. In doing so, Connecticut joins 47 other states in signing onto the standards know as Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers initiated the CCSS. They were created “to raise achievement levels and provide uniformity in school curricula,” said a statement by Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan. In addition, they are designed “to be aligned with college and work expectations” and make American students more competitive globally. Participation is voluntary. Only Alaska and Texas did not participate in creating the standards.
In Connecticut, adoption of the new standards would increase the requirements of the state’s current curriculum. A review of standards by the state finds that 80 percent of the CCSS in English language arts are the same at the current state standards and 92 percent of the CCSS in mathematics are the same. The new standards mostly affect the high school level.
“This is not a massive revision for us,” says Tony Daddona, Norwalk’s Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction noting that we meet many of the standards now. “It will be good to have the same standards across the board and push the rigor.”
McQuillan acknowledges that Connecticut has a long history of local control of schools by boards of education. However, he assures the public that the purpose of the new standards is to “provide direction to local curriculum committees” not to set the curricula.
The adoption of CCSS comes after the passing several major education reform laws. At the end of May, Gov. Rell passed a series of reforms into law, including increasing high school graduation requirements and tying teacher evaluations to student progress The legislation and the common standards were passed, in part, to put the state in good standing to compete for federal grants in the Obama administration's Race to the Top school reform initiative.
What do you think of the idea of national standards? Do you think that this means that we are giving up local control of our schools and what our kids are learning?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Dr. Lang pushed people hard to get all of the curricula revised, but exactly what is the plan now for Norwalk to "push the rigor"?
ReplyDeleteI think national standards are fabulous. You can't have it both ways: wanting the USofA to compete on a global level and then letting individual states set completely disparate requirements for educational achievement.
ReplyDeleteAn added bonus is that elhi publishers will not be held captive to the directives of Texas when it comes to textbooks. Since Texas (and California) is such a large textbook market, they get to dictate to the publishers what to write. Their recent revision of the Texas social studies curriculum borders on insanity: for instance, saying that Joseph McCarthy was actually an American hero and downplaying the existence of Thomas Jefferson and his role in the founding of our country. With 48 states to market to, the publishers will hopefully be able to ignore the loons in Texas. And for what it's worth, I grew up there, so I am familiar with that wonderful, crazy sate.